CHAPTER XVIIIDANGER
JOEL threw down the fish-pole, root-tangle, and all, and rushed wildly over to Ezekiel on the big stone. “Let me see him—let me!” he cried.
“I shall take it home for my father,” said Ezekiel in proud possession, holding up the little speckled beauty dangling from the hook, as he hurried over the stepping-stones.
“And I shall catch one and take it home to my mother,” announced Peletiah, where he sat by the side of the brook. He hadn’t even chosen his worm, but was taking one after another from the tin can, and laying them down on the grass.
“They’re all running away,” cried Joel, flying up with his own fish-pole and David’s, the root-tangle still hanging. “Oh, they’re all running away, Peletiah Henderson.”
“They can’t run,” said Peletiah, still busy trying to decide which worm would be most likely to entice a nice fish, “because they haven’t got legs.”
“And there aren’t but a teenty-weenty few,” cried Joel aghast at the loss. “Oh, you’re a bad boy, Peletiah Henderson,” he added wrathfully, as he examined the contents of the tin can.
“I’m not a bad boy—I’m the minister’s son,” said Peletiah calmly. And selecting the longest and the fattest of the remaining worms, he proceeded to fasten it on his hook.
“I don’t care. You’re the baddest of the bad boys, and you shan’t have any more of these worms.” With that Joel huddled up the tin can within his arms, and marched off to a safe corner back of the bushes.
“See my fish,” cried Ezekiel, coming up to swing his line so that all the others could have a good view. “I caught the first one.”
“I don’t care,” said Joel, busy over David’s tangled hook; “I’ll catch the next one.” Then he twitched off the piece of root, stuck on a worm, David hurrying off to cover his eyes,—andjumped to his feet, and in a minute he was over on the big stone.
But he didn’t get the fish. Instead it was Davie’s worm that met the eyes of a fat old father trout that came lazily down the little purling brook. He had always warned his children, had this fat old trout, to beware of boys, and dancing bugs and worms. But he was tired on this day, and hungry, having eaten nothing since a breakfast of two flies. And the first thing he knew a juicy morsel was in his mouth. But alas! he couldn’t swallow it—for something stuck fast and held him pinned. And one of those same dreadful boys was shouting, “I have got one, Joel!”
When the fat old trout was laid on the grass, all the boys stood around it in speechless admiration.
Finally Joel found his tongue. “Dave caught that,” he announced proudly. “My brother Dave caught that all by himself.”
“It was Joel’s worm,” said Davie.
“I caught the first one,” said Ezekiel. He couldn’t take his eyes from the big fish. At last he ran and tucked his little trout in thebasket, and shut the cover down very tightly.
“Dave’s is bigger,” boasted Joel, strutting off. “Hoh! your fish is a squinching little one, Ezekiel Henderson.”
“I shall catch one now,” announced Peletiah, going pompously off over the stepping-stones, and carrying his fish-pole with a careful hand.
Joel dashed wildly past him, reaching the big stone first. “This is my place,” he declared; “I found it.”
“I shall stand on that stone,” declared Peletiah decidedly, and crowding up to get both feet on it.
As there wasn’t room for more than one, the two boys couldn’t raise their arms enough to swing the fish lines, so they whirled around and around, each trying to get the best place for their feet. At last Peletiah made an unlucky movement, his foot slipped and in he splashed, fish-pole and all.
“I’ll pull you out,” cried Joel, in the greatest dismay, bending over the pool. O dear, if the parson’s son should drown!
Dave caught that. Dave caught that all by himself!“Dave caught that. Dave caught that all by himself!”—Page271.
“Dave caught that. Dave caught that all by himself!”—Page271.
“Dave caught that. Dave caught that all by himself!”—Page271.
“I don’t want you to,” said Peletiah, getting up and paddling to the stepping-stones. Then he marched over them in great dignity, anddripping water dreadfully. “I am going home, and I shall tell my mother how you crowded me off the big stone.”
Joel deserted the big stone by a single bound.
“Don’t—O dear!—Mamsie will feel—don’t, Peletiah,” he begged, plunging frantically after him.
David deserted his big fish, having sat down on the grass by its side, happy in the thought of taking it home to Mamsie, to run up and mingle his entreaties with those of Joel.
“I shall stay and catch a bigger fish than David’s,” announced Ezekiel, preparing to select another worm.
“I am going home,” declared Peletiah, stalking off. Instead of taking the wood-path, he turned into a meadow where a number of cows were grazing.
Joel, with no thought of the fish-pole he was leaving behind but only that he must prevent Peletiah from taking such a dreadful tale to the parsonage, plunged after him. And Davie, recklessly abandoning the big fish, followed in the greatest distress.
Peletiah kept swinging his fish-pole and stalked on.
Suddenly there was a great noise. It was just like a roar of wind—then a queer sound, and that was a bellow, and an old bull, that didn’t like anybody, least of all a boy, to come swinging things around in the field that belonged to him and to the cows, gave a snort and came charging down across the meadow.
Joel saw him first. “The bull—the bull!” he screamed.
Peletiah, quite lost to everything but the story he was carrying to the parsonage, kept on his dignified way, swinging his fish-pole triumphantly.
Joel took a long breath. By turning off he could run by a cross-cut and perhaps make the bull forget Peletiah. Then he swung his arms, and made an awful noise. The bull didn’t like this a bit better, for here were two impudent boys instead of one. So he stopped just a second, trying to decide which one to go for first, and Peletiah, turning, for once in his life was anything but slow in the way he made for the fence. This decided the bull, who now gave his whole attention to Joel, and the small boy pattering after.
“Run for the fence, Dave,” shouted Joel,zigzagging from right to left, trying to confuse the bull, who now was getting thoroughly mad.
David gave one dreadful scream in the direction of a man, off in the road where Peletiah was now safe. But he didn’t run for the fence; on the contrary, he did just what Joel was doing, darted first to right, then to left, so that between the two boys the bull was troubled in his mind which one to toss up toward the sky.
The first thing either of them knew, somebody was saying, “I’ll take care of the bull—run for the fence!” and a tall figure was dashing in to the thick of things and swinging his hat.
By this time, the bull didn’t know where he was nor what course to pursue. And before any of them quite knew it, Joel and David were over the fence, and the tall man was bending over them where they had tumbled flat down on their faces in the grass.
“Well, little chap, I’ve paid my debt to you,” he was saying, bending over David. But David was beyond hearing anything, having fainted clear away. So the tall young man took him and carried him across the road wherethere was a little thread of a stream of water that ran away by itself from the brook, Joel stumbling after, picking out the grass that flew in his mouth as he tumbled off from the fence.
“Now then,” the tall young man smiled as David opened his eyes, “little chap, you’re coming round all right,” and he wrung the water out of his handkerchief, with which he had bathed the small, white face.
And David looked up into the eyes of the visitor who had come uninvited to Mr. Atkins’ store, to go afterward to Cherryville jail.
The color came flying back into David’s cheeks, and he sat straight.
“Did they hurt you there?” he cried anxiously.
“Not a bit of it,” said the young man. “I’m just out to-day. Good luck for you,” he said under his breath.
The old bull, very angry that the cows should see his discomfiture, was snorting and pawing the earth over in the meadow. David shivered and hid his eyes on the young man’s sleeve.
Joel, who hadn’t taken his gaze from the stranger, crowded up as closely as he could.
“Who are you, Mr. Man?” he demanded.
“Didn’t you ever hear of a fellow who tried to rob the store in Badgertown?” asked the stranger, fixing his keen eyes on him.
Joel tumbled back, “Are you the burglar?”
“He didn’t take anything,” cried Davie hastily.
“Good reason why. This little chap wouldn’t let me,” said the young man. Then he laughed.
“And you—you jumped in front of the bull,” gasped Joel.
“That was easy enough,” said the young man. “I couldn’t have this little chap hurt. He was good to me, and didn’t want me to be hurt.”
“I think you are a good burglar, Mr. Man,” said Joel, crowding up closely. “I said I’d have smashed you if I’d been there in the store—but I don’t want to now.”
The young man burst into a hearty laugh.
“I could have done it,” said Joel, very much nettled at the laugh—and he doubled up his small fists.
“Oh, I dare say,” said the young man, wiping his eyes. Then he saw Joel’s face.
“Well, you have got a pair of fists, to be sure!” he declared admiringly.
Joel spread his little brown hands, then doubled them up again and flirted them in the air, very much pleased.
“Yes, indeed,” said the young man. “Well now, don’t use them any more than you can help. Good luck to you, little chap,” he turned to David, and was gone down the road.
“I wish he hadn’t gone,” mourned David, looking after him. “Perhaps he would have come with us to Mamsie.”
That made Joel think of the two fish-poles and the big fish. “I must get them,” he said, springing up. Just then down the road that he had struck from the wood-path came Ezekiel, who didn’t find it so pleasant, after all, being alone. He was carrying all the things, even the tin can that had one worm in it.
Peletiah, long before this at the parsonage, was sitting on the back steps. Having run every step of the way home, a thing he couldn’t remember ever doing in his life before, he still sat thinking it all over. It didn’t seem quite so nice a thing to do, to carry the tale into the parson’s study, as at first it had appearedto him. And when he thought of the bull, as Joel’s cry had warned him, he ducked his head down between his arms. And although he had seen the young man save the situation, he couldn’t forget Joel waving his arms, and telling him to “run for the fence.”
Joel was occupied for the next few hours after reaching the little brown house and the story all through with, in pretending he was the bull and dashing after imaginary persons; and then when tired of that, he said he was going to be the burglar.
“Don’t call him that,” begged David, who had shivered all through Joel’s performance. “Mamsie, please don’t let Joel call him that.”
“No, Joel, you mustn’t,” said Mrs. Pepper; “say, instead, ‘How good he was!’”
“He said I had good fists,” said Joel, doubling up his little brown hands to view them affectionately.
“Fists are to be used only when you are sure it is right to do so,” said Mrs. Pepper. “Remember that, Joey.”
“Oh, hello!” Joel, at last obliged to drop his imaginary performances as a bull, had run out to pick up some kindlings. By the sideof the woodshed he ran against a boy. It was Peletiah.
“I didn’t tell my father and my mother you wouldn’t let me get on my big stone,” he said.
“It was my stone,” declared Joel, squaring up to him. “I got on it first.”
“You got off of it,” said Peletiah, “and that made it mine when I got on.”
“I was coming back when I got Davie’s fish-hook fixed,” said Joel stubbornly. “It wasmybig stone.”
“It was mine, and you came up and scrouged,” said Peletiah, bobbing his tow head obstinately.
“I wish your father would preach at you, and preach at you every single Sunday,” cried Joel vindictively, kicking his rusty little shoe in the dirt.
“My father doesn’t preach at us,” cried Peletiah calmly. “He preaches at other people.”
“Well, I wish a bear would come out of the woods and eat you,” said Joel.
Peletiah looked all about him, his glance even taking in the hills ranging about Badgertown. “There aren’t any bears around here,” he said calmly.
“Well, maybe they could come from somewhere else,” said Joel, his round face brightening.
Just then Mrs. Pepper appeared in the doorway, and David just behind her. “Peletiah, you are just the one I want to see,” she cried. She had a blue plate covered with a napkin in her hand. “Now, David, you tell him,” looking down at him. But David hung back. So Mamsie had to do it for him. “David wants you to take half of this nice big fish to your mother, as Ezekiel is going to give his to your father.” She came down from the step, and put the plate in his hand.
Peletiah, standing quite still, looked at the blue plate covered with the napkin. Then he moved off slowly. Joel ran after him.
“I don’t want the bears to eat you,” he said.
“And you can have the big stone if you want it,” said Peletiah.